A meeting between two heads of state is not an audience

There are two heads of state about which Malta is always very confused: the British sovereign and the head of the Roman Catholic, who is also the head of the Vatican state. No need to go into the reasons why, but it’s time this attitude ceased to persist.

We are told this morning that Malta’s head of state will “have an audience” with the Pope in a few days’ time. A head of state does not have an audience with another head of state. Heads of state always meet as equals. It is a meeting between two heads of state and not one head of state granting an audience somebody.

If Marie Louise Coleiro Preca wishes to have “an audience” with the head of the Roman Catholic Church, then she should wait until she is no longer head of state and go there as a private citizen and believer.

Until then, please don’t call it or treat it as an audience. Malta is not a vassal state of the Vatican state (as distinct from the Roman Catholic Church).

The private and personal religious beliefs of Malta’s head of state are none of our business, and should stay out of their public role. The way our politicians and heads of state use their position to gain access to their private religious leader is actually offensive and abusive. It is actually an abuse of their position. If they are invited because of their position, then they should go in that role, and not as members of the church, however nominal and however weak their belief.